Posts from ‘Sleeping Around’
Great news for ALL my Slovenian fans.
Friday, March 5th, 2010
Spati okrog (kavč surfanje ogled sveta). I’m not sure if that makes any sense, but that’s what I got when I translated ‘Sleeping Around (a couch surfing tour of the globe)’ into Slovenian on Google. Today I signed the contract for a Slovenian translation of Sleeping Around (which I’m guessing isn’t done entirely on Google translation) and should be out there later in the year. That now means my books have been translated into German, Thai, Mandarin and Slovenian. Not quite world domination, but I’m working on it… (read more)
If it’s Friday, this must be Hannover.
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
I’m nearing the end of my book tour around Germany for Couch Surfing: Eine abenteuerliche Reise um die Welt and scheiße am I tired. The tour has been going very well, though, and the book events have been well attended, my couch surfing hosts have been wonderful and I’ve eaten and drunk my body weight in wurst and beer. So far I have been to Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Leipzig and Rendsburg and I’m currently in Hannover. I think.
Here’s a brief run down of my trip so far: (read more)
Clowning around in Frankfurt.
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Tomorrow I fly to Frankfurt for the publicity tour of Couch Surfing – Eine abenteuerliche Reise um die Welt and it’s been a while. Although I have been to Germany around twenty times the last time I was in Frankfurt was 20 years ago! In fact, Frankfurt was the first city I flew to on my first Big Trip OS. But, my first taste of Germany and Frankfurt was a little bit scary (in that clown scary sort of way). As I stepped out of Frankfurt airport as a young, naive backpacker, I noticed a couple of people dressed as clowns. In the underground train station I saw two more clowns drinking large cans of beer.Sitting opposite me on the train was another clown having an animated conversation with a court jester. I had no idea… (read more)
My German Couch Surfing Tour.
Friday, September 11th, 2009
I’m off travelling around Germany in late September/October promoting Couch Surfing – Eine abenteuerliche Reise um die Welt (the German translation of ‘Sleeping Around’) and I’ve just received my ’schedule’. A ‘competition’ was held amongst booksellers around Germany and the prize (and I use that word loosely) is me staying on their couch and doing a talk at their bookshop. I’m really looking forward to the trip because, although I have been to Germany many times, I haven’t been there for fourteen years. And, I’m also going to quite a few cities that I haven’t been to before including Stuttgart, Leipzig, Hannover and Rendsburg. And the other thing that I’m really excited about is… (read more)
Couchskiing.
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
I do love couch surfing. Particularly when the couch is in a ski resort. I’ve just come back from a few days couch surfing at Mt Hotham in the Victorian alps. I stayed with Olivier, a lovely French-Canadian ski instructor who had previously couch surfed with me in Melbourne (including his first ever night in Australia last year). And not only did I have a ‘free’ couch for a few nights, but because it was Olivier’s second season working as a ski instructor he got a free two-day lift pass which… (read more)
Sleeping Around wins ‘Travel Book of the Year’
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
Yes, wow! I still can’t believe it myself, but last night at the Australian Society of Travel Writers Awards night in Bangkok I won ‘Travel Book of the Year’. I was honoured and chuffed just to be a finalist, but I was pretty much flabbergasted when I actually won it! I even had to go up onto the stage in front of the 200 guests and give a speech (a very short one). I’ll post a pic of the award/trophy when I get home (it’s a very flash glass one!). So, I’ve had a bit of a sore head today. (read more)
Who reads ebooks?
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
I saw someone reading an ‘ebook’ yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen someone reading one (it looked just like the one in the pic – although it was grey and not glow-in-the-dark green). I have to say, though, that it did look a bit odd. Call me old fashioned, but I like to hold a book in my hand. I like to be able to flick through the pages and, more importantly, I wouldn’t get to use all those ‘novelty’ bookmarks I’ve got for presents over the years. I tried to find figures on how many people actually use ebooks, but I couldn’t find any. Mind you, I do hope that people use ebooks quite a bit. Particularly since Sleeping Around was ‘launched’ last week on www.Ebooks.com (and is a bargain at US$19.95). (read more)
Karaoke World Tour – Philippines
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
It’s Chapter Six of Brian’s Karaoke World Tour and this time I’m in the Philippines. I was in Manila ‘couch surfing’ for my book Sleeping Around when my host suggested that we do what all good Filipinos do. Go to karaoke. We went to a small karaoke bar and when I told Jude that I was going to sing ‘My Way’ he said, ‘You can’t sing that. You’ll get killed!’ Only the week before a man had been shot dead in a karaoke bar for singing My Way. He was halfway through the song when the bar’s security guard yelled at him for singing out of tune. He ignored him and kept singing, so the guard pulled out a thirty-eight-calibre pistol and shot him dead…
The Couch Surfing tidal wave.
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
In August last year I posted a blog about couchsurfing.com reaching an amazing 700,000 members, but while I was away on my last trip the website hit the MILLION mark! And since then they have snuck up to 1,167,005 members with close to 15,000 joining EVERY week. Now, I’m not very good at maths, but at this growth rate I figure that the entire world will have their couch registered by 2025. There are now 232 countries represented and 59,599 cities. I found this info on the stats page on the couchsurfing website. I love stats. I hope you do too because I’m just about to share a whole bunch of them with you… (read more)
Two library events and a nasi goreng.
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
Look how excited everyone is! That’s because I’m doing two library events this week complete with slide show and ‘witty’ tales about my latest book Sleeping Around. You can catch me at Pakenham Library on Tuesday May 26th at 7.00pm and at Athenaeum Library in the city on Wednesday May 27th at 1.00pm. For full details check out my events page. I’ll also be selling and signing books, which you can then sell on ebay for thousands of dollars.
And for those that can’t make it to Melbourne this week why not come hear me talk in Bali… (read more)